Satan had been making admiring remarks about certain of the Creator’s sparkling industries — remarks which, being read between the lines, were sarcasms.

To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro. She was a slave, and...

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.

The lack of money is the root of all evil.

When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.

I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my...

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled...

Man has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights…sexual intercourse!…His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not...

A consciously exaggerated compliment is an offense.

It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream – till you got a bite.A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and kill the scorpion; and the next...

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

Every one knew he could foretell wars and famines, though that was not so hard, for there was always a war, and generally a famine somewhere.

The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow.

I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.

Schoolboy days are no happier than the days of afterlife, but we look back upon them regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments at school and how we grieved when our marbles were lost and...

There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.

A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people.

That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it.

In light matters–matters of small consequence, like religion and politics and such things–he never acquired a conviction that could survive a disapproving remark from a cat.

Nothing exists; all is a dream. God—man—the world—the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars—a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space—and you!

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my...

Now he found out a new thing–namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.

If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.

Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.

Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep ’til noon.

An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it it is reasonably certain that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a preparation for...

In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”[Mark Twain, a Biography]

I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.

Yes, King Edward VI lived only a few years, poor boy, but he lived them worthily.

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion–several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and...

Yes. And I’m rich now when I think about it. I own myself, and I’m worth eight hundred dollars. I wish I had the money. Then I wouldn’t ever want anything else

Work like you don’t need the money. Dance like no one is watching. And love like you’ve never been hurt.

Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels...

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

She said all a body would have to do there [Heaven] was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.

Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on ‘The Survival of the Fittest.’ These are illustrious names, this...

Life is short, Break the Rules.Forgive quickly, Kiss SLOWLY.Love truly. Laugh uncontrollablyAnd never regret ANYTHINGThat makes you smile.

No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of the word; they have not deserved it . . .It is like your paltry race–always lying, always claiming...

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

Familiarity breeds contempt and children.

If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won’t sit on a hot stove again. That cat won’t sit on a cold stove either. That cat just don’t like stoves.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.

Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.

Thou shalt not commit adultry is a command which makes no distinction between the following persons. They are all required to obey it: children at birth. Children in the cradle. School children. Youths and maidens....

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man...